Unexpected Casualty
by FarmerLiz
Summary: Gibbs has returned from his mission to save his career to discover that Abby has changed. Gabby. Spoilers for Season 10. Rating is better-safe-than-sorry for language.


_Author's note: I wanted angry Abby, so I wrote her, but from Gibb's POV. This is my first story for NCIS, which I don't own. If I did, Gabby would be canon._

On a Friday evening, Leroy Jethro Gibbs was attempting to enjoy the quiet safety of his home. He had earned the enjoyment of the un-open Larry McMurtry novel in his hand and the untouched bourbon at his elbow. The long nightmare of the summer was over. His actions avenged the deaths of Eli David and Jackie Vance, averted national security disasters, and restored the reputation of more than one good federal agent.

Gibbs had returned to full duty, but his gut would not settle. Thoughts of Abby undermined his peace. The Abby whom Gibbs left behind in May was not the same Abby who greeted him (or didn't, rather) upon his return in September. He feared their friendship had become another unexpected casualty of a particularly bloody year. The evidence didn't lie.

Exhibit number 1: Abby was ignoring him. On the team's first day back, she threw an party in her lab. A be-glittered "welcome back!" banner decorated her computer station, and Abby passed out those silly, cone shaped party hats to the team as they entered. Normally Gibbs was not a party-hat kind of guy, but he would have worn one if Abby had asked. (She didn't.)

Exhibit number 2: Abby no longer drank CafPow! She was still as caffeinated as ever thanks to the high-end coffee maker she now kept in her office. Gibbs' nose told him the coffee was probably excellent (not that she ever offered him any), but it was just fundamentally wrong. It has been years since he'd felt the sting of rejection he experienced when, during his first case back, he brought his usual offering down to the lab. She declined the beverage with a very polite "no thank you, Agent Gibbs." Which brought him to,

Exhibit number 3: _Agent_ _Gibbs_? Not since the first few weeks of her employment at NCIS had she called him _Agent Gibbs_. Abby was treating him as if he were merely a colleague, and a distant one at that. She never touched him. She didn't confide in him. She didn't ramble when presenting evidence. Not only was it hinky (_heartbreaking_), it was boring.

Exhibit number 4: Abby didn't visit. Most evenings since the restoration of the team, Gibbs' home saw a parade of visitors. Each time by the sound of the footsteps of some member of his team greeted his ears in basement he grew increasingly frustrated at the absence of Abby's heavy, booted gait. Abby once treated his home like it was her own. Now she never darkened his door. (God, he was lonely.)

Gibbs thought to wait her out. Given enough time Abby always came to him. This time, Gibbs would blink first. The mere thought of returning to work on Monday for a third week of "Agent Gibbs" and no CafPow! runs was just too bleak to consider.

Grabbing his keys before he had time to change his mind, Gibbs drove over to Abby's apartment only find that she wouldn't answer the door. He knew Abby was home. Her car was outside and the lights were on in her apartment windows, but she didn't open the door after his first knock. The knot in his gut tightened. Was she ignoring him even now, when he'd come to her?

Unwilling to accept this possibility, he knocked again, harder this time. Abby answered the door, sweaty and dressed for a workout, with an iPod strapped to her bicep and the ear buds in her hand blasting sound at a level that made Gibbs cringe for her ears. Relived, and annoyed at both Abby and himself, Gibbs gestured to the offending devise in her hand and asked, "You trying to ruin your ears?"

Abby stood panting in the doorway, leaning against the partially opened door and blocking Gibbs's entrance. She shot him an impatient look while powering down the player.

"My new downstairs neighbors have an infant, so I try to keep it down." _As you'd know if you'd been here this summer_, Abby's tone implied. This slight testiness from her was the first real emotion Abby had directed toward Gibbs since his return. Nevertheless, she made no move to invite him in from the hallway, so Gibb's cocked his head slightly to the side and asked, "You gonna let me in?"

"I don't know. Do you _want_ to come in?"

Though Gibbs had arrived with the proverbial hat in hand, ready to atone for whatever he had done to offend Abby, but the sheer pissy-ness that was radiating off of her now was starting to elicit the same mood from him.

"Well, yeah, that's kinda why I came over."

"You should have said," Abby huffed while pushing away the door and standing aside to let him in.

Now he was just confused, sending Abby a look that asked what the hell she was talking about.

"Rule Eight: Never Assume," she quoted at him. "I've decided that's the most important of all of the rules. 'Never assume anything when it comes to Gibbs.' Maybe that should be Abby's rule number two. As in 'Never assume that Gibbs will take a moment to tell me where he's going before risking his life, yet again.'"

So this was about his mission? His Hail Mary pass to save his job and his team, and yes, especially to save Abby. Her signature on the forensics report and subsequent silence about the death of Pedro Hernandez made her the most vulnerable of all of them the kind of scrutiny the team faced last spring. Abby, who, unlike himself, Ziva, and Vance, hadn't acted out of revenge, or like McGee, who was all too happy to hack any computer system he could under the official cover of law enforcement, or Tony who carried a badge and a gun and signed up for the risks he took every day. Abby acted out of friendship and loyalty. She had protected him the only way she could, and continued to protect him by keeping his secret. And so Gibbs repaid her loyalty by doing exactly he promised long ago: he kept her safe, the only way he know how.

"It was necessary, Abbs."

And finally (_finally_) Abigail Scuito's temper erupted. Feet pacing, hands gesturing, and pony tail swinging, and heedless of the potentially sleeping infant downstairs, Abby began to yell.

"I DON'T CARE! Don't you get it? You could have died, and you left without one. single. fucking. word. At least when you ran away to Mexico I knew how to reach you. Not only did I not have a clue where you were this summer, I was too terrified to look for you. I mean, what if my computer was being tracked? I'd put you in more danger somehow. But what if you needed me to look for you? I was torn for weeks. Weeks! And then one day, I knew I had to stop. So I took your picture off my screen saver and stopped resenting the new agents and bought a coffee maker that cost more than my car payment and got on with my job. Alone!"

"I was trying to protect you," Gibbs responded quietly.

"You left me," she shouted, pushing hard against Gibb's chest. As her angered words turned to sobs, Gibbs pulled Abby tightly to him, her pounding fists trapped between their chests and his arms banded around her back, rocking gently. Gibbs whispered soothing words into her hair. He repeated "I know," and "I'm here now," and "let it out," He responded to Abby's pain as he always did, with a corresponding hurt of own on. But he was also relieved to have finally gotten though the wall of ice Abby had built between them.

Soon she withdrew from Gibbs' embrace and, taking a step back, gave him a sheepish look, hands fluttering to smooth his shirt and wipe at the tear stains she left behind.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten so emotional."

The storm was past, but Gibbs needed to understand why Abby was blowing hot and cold, so softly he asked, "Why?"

"Why, what?"

"Why did this upset you so much?"

Abby opened her mouth to speak, but no words emerged.

"Please, Abby. I need to understand."

Still unable to speak the words, Abby reverted to her first language. With hesitant motions she signed, "_because I love you, Gibbs_."

After the furious storm of Abby's anger, the silence of her confession was complete and unbreakable. Gibbs was profoundly shaken. So he responded in kind, silently, his hands signing while his eyes asked the question, "_you love me?_"

Beginning with a whisper, her voice growing stronger with use, Abby replied, "I do. And not like a daughter, or a sister, or like anything even remotely familial."

"Like a woman loves a man," Gibbs supplied in a quiet voice tinged with wonder.

"Yeah. But you don't love me like that, so it's fine. I'm coping, you know? So just forget I ever said anything, and you can go back to brining me CafPows!, and everything will go back to the way it was. Promise."

If Gibbs had been taken aback by Abby's confession, the prospect of having it withdrawn dispelled any indecision. If this woman really loved him (L_oved? Really?_), he would not be the fool who turned her away. With the same confidence he used in the squad room, he replied

"Don't want to forget it."

"Then what do you want?"

"You," was Gibbs' simple reply.

"Wow," Abby replied in a whisper, as if talked to herself. "Really?"

He reached for her then, working one hand into Abby's hair at the base of her pony tail and the other on the small of her back. The kiss he placed on her lips was firm, but gentle. She smelled of clean sweat from her interrupted workout and tasted of excellent coffee, all of it mixed with something essentially Abby. Her arms came around him as she settled into the kiss, humming softly as she closed her eyes and parted her lips, inviting him in. But soon Gibbs ended the kiss and pulled away, though he kept her hands in his. With his trademark half-smile he answered Abby's earlier, now nearly forgotten question, "yes, really."

The smile on Abby's face was like sunshine, and it warmed Gibbs soul in the corners of himself he feared were permanently darkened since the events of the summer (and since Jenny, since Kate,_ since his girls_). He also knew that Abby needed to be sure of him again, and that a simple kiss couldn't make it all better for either of them. So Gibbs did what he always did, he followed his gut.

"Ms. Scuito, will you have dinner with me tomorrow night," he asked. The mischief in her eye told Gibbs that he'd done well.

"You mean like a date," Abby asked, preening.

"Exactly like a date," Gibbs replied. "I want to do this right. I want to rebuild what we had. I want you to trust me again."

"I _do_ trust you, Gibbs," Abby began to protest, but Gibbs shushed her gently with a finger to her lips.

"Not entirely. But you will. I plan to earn it. Staring now by explaining the corollary to Rule 6, which is that apologies among friends aren't a weakness. And I am sorry Abbs, not for what I had to do, but for not explaining what was happening before I left. It happened quickly, but I should have made time."

Abby's acceptance of Gibbs' rare apology with a small, sad smile attested to the hurt she'd felt and the new hope Gibbs had for their relationship.

Then he felt his own face break out into a full-blown grin when Abby contritely responded, "And I'm sorry I called you 'Agent Gibbs.'"

Their second kiss was tinged with laughter.


End file.
